The ad, which the Reid campaign says is running in the Las Vegas and Reno TV markets, appears to be another attempt by Reid to paint Angle as too conservative and out of the mainstream for a majority of Nevada voters.

In the commercial, the narrator says "You've heard Sharron Angle wants to wipe out Social Security. Now she says it's like welfare."

The ad continues with audio of Angle, from an interview last month with KNPR, saying "my grandfather would not even take his Social Security check because he said he was not up for welfare..."

That clip is followed by a soundbite of Edward Coyle, from the Alliance for Retired Americans, saying "the money that people have invested in Social Security all their working lives is their money. To call it welfare is just plain insulting."

The new ad follows another Reid commercial launched earlier this month that also targets Angle's stance on Social Security.
"Shockingly, Sharron Angle wants to wipe out Social Security," says the announcer in the earlier commercial. "She'd cut benefits for everyone coming into the system."

On Social Security, the former state lawmaker says "free market alternatives, which offer retirement choices to employees and employers, must be developed and offered to those still in their wage earning years, as the Social Security system is transitioned out," according to her campaign website.

As for those currently in the system, Angle adds that "the government must continue to keep its contract with seniors, who entered into the system on good faith and now are depending on that contract."

The former state lawmaker, once a long shot for the Nevada Republican Senate nomination, easily defeated 12 other candidates in the June 8 primary, thanks in part to help from the Tea Party Express (a national Tea Party organization) and the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group.

Angle's campaign has not yet responded to a CNN request for a comment on the new Reid commercial, but in response to the first commercial, Angle campaign spokesman Jerry Stacy told CNN that "Social Security has become a broken system that Harry Reid is unwilling to sincerely address during all his many terms in office."

Polls suggest that Reid faces a tough road to re-election this year as he bids for his fifth term in office.

UPDATE 6:53 p.m.: Angle campaign spokesman Jerry Stacy said in a statement late Wednesday that "Harry Reid is down in the polls and he is trying to divert attention away from the fact that he is one who is extreme - Obamacare, cap & trade, amnesty, the stimulus, the bailouts ... Nevada is suffering from the worse unemployment and the worse housing-market in the nation and Harry Reid is attempting to try and portray himself as anything but a politician who has been in charge of this plundering out-of-control federal government, but the voters are not being fooled by his nonsense."

soundoff(87 Responses)

Good grief, Angle apologists. Her words are on her website, for anyone to read. No one is putting words in her mouth.

Social Security is not welfare. I've been paying into it for over 40 years, and if i ever retire, maybe 15 years from now, I intend to collect on my investment.

As to all of you telling us to buy private retirement accounts, we did! And most of us lost them with the collapse of Wall Street, all thanks to Republican policies.

Why do Republicans hate Americans who played by their rules, but lost their savings, their jobs, their homes, their health insurance?

It's time to say no to the Party of No. No more deregulation of the financial industry and the resulting economic collapse. No more deregulation of the oil industry and its resulting ecological collapse, and resulting economic collapse.

Is Angle willing to back up her statements, or as with all the others, does she simply go on FOX NEWS in an attempt to explain to all the brainwashed gullible what she REALLY means?

June 23, 2010 05:37 pm at 5:37 pm |

ThsIsNotReal

REID, IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO US YOUNGER PEOPLE EITHER WAY, GET USED TO IT!!!!!

Social Security will go bankrupt from the boomers when there's more seniors than workers. Angle is saying that they will still still honor the contract with existing seniors, it's just younger people who will not be able to get it. (And I'm not sure there will be enough money left even for current seniors!) I will have to fund my own retirement because I know I'll never see a dime of social security. So Reid, you can take your ad and burn it.

June 23, 2010 05:37 pm at 5:37 pm |

one voice

Extreme isn't the word to describe this lady. I would call her more like anti-average American. To want to put social security in the stock market to get dIvided by crooks in wallstreet is CRAZY

June 23, 2010 05:42 pm at 5:42 pm |

Don Wuerl

Hey Nevada! You may not love Harry Ried; but, you sure as hell can't retire without Social Security! When Ms. Angle works on dismantling the EPA and Department of Education, it will be too late! Oh yeah! Let Limbaugh educate those kids and those greedy business executives plunder our beautiful planet! What the hell; get rid of OSHA, the Minimum Wage, too! We don't need to only work 40hr weeks, either! All the wonderful things that we have taken for granted since FDR may have numbered days, ahead!
THAT WOULD BE A NIGHTMARE FROM HELL! Our anscesters fought for these ideals because they were correct. Bogus ideas like the Gospel of Wealth and Social Darwinism are just that-wrong! Let's not go there, again!

June 23, 2010 05:43 pm at 5:43 pm |

Jayson

If Social Security is so great why is in mandatory and not optional? I for one would give up everything I have paid into the system in exchange for the opportunity to take that money and invest it myself. Then I won't have to worry about the retirement age changing yet again and I will be the only one to blame if anything goes wrong...

June 23, 2010 05:44 pm at 5:44 pm |

ScaredStraight!

Angle is scarier than a Steven King Novel!! She has no platform to run on except go talk to Harry Reid. What happened to "what I will do for you when I'm elected??? She rants about how broken SS is and that she wants to privatize it on her website and then when asked about the comments has NO IDEA what the reporter is talking about; so she yells go talk to Harry Reid! I'm confused why is Harry Reid supposed to explain Angles website comments??? Massages for Nevada prisoners?? I thought prison was PUNISHMENT??? Angle is mentally unstable, Nevada please vote NO to Angle she is a loose canon!!

June 23, 2010 05:46 pm at 5:46 pm |

8 years of the Bush Error = How many years of recession and unemployment?

Give 'em Hell, Harry!

I have to believe that the citizens of Nevada are sane enough to NOT elect this half-wit fascist, in as a freshman Senator to replace the most powerful Senator in the Senate.

Want to guess what your state unemployment rates and foreclosures will look like in 2011 with your newbie Senator?

June 23, 2010 05:46 pm at 5:46 pm |

Rush Limbaugh marries ambulance chaser,and were still laughing

Yea for Harry,he will beat this moron,hahaha

June 23, 2010 05:47 pm at 5:47 pm |

phoenix86

Harry Reid, who passed a law that applies only to a segment of the population while exempting others, who spent the final two years of the Bush adminstration comparing the president to Hitler, who supports the weakening of our economy, who supports policies that add to the national debt while increasing unemployment, who falls to his knees when Pelosi walks into the room....

Harry Reid is so far to the extreme left that he is practically fascist.

June 23, 2010 05:47 pm at 5:47 pm |

Stacie

A Second Amendment solution??? If that "call to arms" isn't extreme, I don't know what is.

June 23, 2010 05:47 pm at 5:47 pm |

hobart

First, Angle is only saying she'll honor the contract with existing seniors because she's pandering to get their vote. That's not what she said previously, so her hypocrisy is transparent.

Second, getting your own retirement plan is no sure thing, either. Thanks to Republican total deregulation of the financial industry and the health care industry, many of us have lost our private retirement and health care plans. My retirement plan used to include health insurance until I died. Not any more. When I retire, I lose my health insurance, all thanks to those heartless bastard, loathsome Republicans.

Why is it when we play by Republican rules and lose our shirts, the first people to dump us are.., (wait for it).., REPUBLICANS!

Why do Republicans hate America?

June 23, 2010 05:49 pm at 5:49 pm |

Stacie

Yes, Jayson, unless the stock market tanks and you lose everything...but that would never happen, right?

June 23, 2010 05:51 pm at 5:51 pm |

Jeff8712

Folks, it's important to note here that the money you have put into SS is not there for you; it is not 'your' money like a 401k account. The money we all paid through the years was used to pay for those collecting SS at the time of your payment. There is no money in SS (hence, why it's 'broke') and the liberal Dems simply will tax Americans more – all Americans, including the lower middle class, to make up the short-fall. Of course, this won't happen happen until Jan 2011... after the election. Why do you think members of Congress do not get SS? Or Obamacare? Because regardless of what happens to the 'American people', they want their perks. I am 55 and and have worked continuously since age 18, paying into SS. I do *not* expect to see a dime from SS when I am eligable in 10 years.

June 23, 2010 05:51 pm at 5:51 pm |

Steve

If the people of Nevada are so stupid that they believe anything that Harry Reid says, then they deserve him. The rest of the Nation would vote him out if they had a chance. Reid and Pelosi have destroyed the United States of America. The could care less about what the American people want! They have their own agenda, and that's to spend, spend and spend. Our grandchildren and their children and grandchildren will be stuck paying for the mess that these two have created for many, many years.

June 23, 2010 05:52 pm at 5:52 pm |

normajean

I have only one thing to say to this woman. Where does she get the idea that Social Security is welfare.? I had my first job at thirteen and the S.S. record shows that a small part of my pay went into S.S. I didn't even know what that was. Years later after paying with every pay check ,I retired and as with most retirees started collecting. If I had known and had the way to do it, I could have invested that money and who knows what i might have ended up with. The problem today with S.S. is that the government has been "borrowing:: this money for years,knowing full well that if they had properly invested , it could have gone on way past these declining years.Welfare it is not.

June 23, 2010 05:54 pm at 5:54 pm |

Eric

"You've heard Sharron Angle wants to wipe out Social Security. Now she says it's like welfare."

Actually, it's not like welfare.
It's more like a Ponzi scheme, instead.

If the system is dependent upon getting more new payers into the system (workers) to support those being paid out (retirees), that's the definition of a Ponzi scheme.... and in both, when you run out of new suckers to pay in, the whole system collapses. (Gee, now what have I been hearing lately about SS going bankrupt in a few years?)

Bernie Madoff got a hundred zillion years for running his billion dollar Ponzi scheme, while FDR got to die a free man, and his scheme is now in the trillions of dollars and still in operation.

June 23, 2010 05:56 pm at 5:56 pm |

thor

Sling that campaign mud Harry,maybe it'll work better than what they tried to use to stop the oil pouring out of the well into the Gulf.

June 23, 2010 05:58 pm at 5:58 pm |

MsDp

Repbulicans hate American, they buy US Bonds and bet the short, while ensuring that the short pays them well.

June 23, 2010 05:58 pm at 5:58 pm |

NVa Native

All you need say is she's and older version of Palin.

June 23, 2010 05:59 pm at 5:59 pm |

WA resident

If Angle is extreme, then what is Harry Reid???

June 23, 2010 05:59 pm at 5:59 pm |

Kabel

Social Security is not WELFARE. Every one who works pays in. I have spent the last 25 years working hard and I have paid my income and social security taxes every year. I paid in over $38,000.00 in income taxes alone for 2008 and over half a million dollars so far in lmy life time. I now have an autoimmune disease that is killing me, but yet I am denied Social Security. All my savings are gone due to medical bills. So when Angle likens Social Security to welfare it makes me wonder why? For the last 25 years we have watched both Republicans and Democrats a like syphon the Social Security trust fund down to nothing. They say it's broke, but the only reason it is is because of them. Now some like Angle have found an interesting solution, just obolish Social Security and then no one has to pay it back or answer to the public about where the money went. Reid is no Angel, but then neither is Angle. So give me my $500,000.00 back and we will call it even, the government can keep the interest.

June 23, 2010 06:00 pm at 6:00 pm |

You gotta be kidding

And this coming from the same goofball who insisted that paying taxes was voluntary. Reid is an idiot. Not living in Nevada, I know little of Angle but if a Senator isn't smart enough to know that taxes are NOT voluntary, who can be worse?

Get a clue, morons. It's not because SS benefits have been expanded. It's because Congress, under idiots like Bush, passes laws that dip into the SS pool in order to pay for their idiocy and make it look like it didn't cost as much as it really did on paper. That was the entire reason for discussion of the "lock box" etc. Notice though. In 1994, when the GOP took back Congress, Newtered Gingrich said they would now let Medicare and SS "wither on the vine." Name us one thing the GOP did during its control of congress and/or the WH to fix and protect either of those things. Now ask yourself why there are no examples and if you have any troubel coming up with a reason, please refer to all the arguments conservatives are making below regarding "entitlements" and "welfare" and "government just doesn't work." Get it? Self-fulfilling prophecy to say the least.